


Drag

by peregrineroad



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Adult Fear, Claustrophobia, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Peter Quill, canon-typical child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 04:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14253120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peregrineroad/pseuds/peregrineroad
Summary: Peter is small. Skinny. He can fit into spaces that adults can't access.Peter is stuck, and Yondu is waiting.





	Drag

“I’m stuck,” Peter gasped into the comm. Jagged rocks were digging deeper into his shoulders with every breath. The back of his shirt was damp with sweat and the slow drizzle of his blood.

“No, you ain’t,” Yondu said. Even in the midst of claustrophobic horror, Peter felt himself twitch.  He was going to die down here in the dark for the sake of a Ravager payday, and Yondu  _still_ wasn’t taking his opinions seriously.

“I  _am_ ,” he insisted. It felt like someone had sharpened the rocks just to hold him there. He’d got past them on his way down, but apparently they were angled so that escaping back up the tunnel brought you right into a Terran-grating zone. His back was rasping on the stone, and it was closing tight around his chest like panic.

He scrabbled in the space ahead of him, his fingers digging in until the nails stung, and tried to push himself up on his toes. His legs were cramping. Couldn’t crawl forward. Couldn’t inch back. Breathing pressed his bruising ribs against the tunnel walls. There was grit in his mouth and eyes, and he was gonna die.

“Boy, you’re fine. Quit puffing and you’ll get through.”

“You don’t _know that_ ,” Peter hissed, eyes burning with the dust and the terrible depth of the dark. “You ain’t here!”

No-one else on the crew would be small enough to come down after him. That was why they’d sent him in the first place. Shit, he really was going to die down a hole; breathless, sightless, all alone, with only Yondu’s voice in his head to tell him how he’d messed up.

“Quill.” Yondu didn’t sound the tiniest bit worried. Peter had never hated him more. “Breathe slow ‘n stop struggling. That’s an order.”

He wanted to yell back, but the air felt so thin and grimy that he couldn’t draw enough of it in. All that came out was a hiss, an enfeebled “ _Fuck you_ ”, before he limply complied.

He could hear his heart banging in his ears. Breathe in. Out. In. Out. Slowly. His head buzzed. The dark in his eyes started to flash red spots. The quiet wound around him too, like tomb-cloths.

“Lamparos what made those tunnels were bigger ‘n you are,” Yondu said, tone casual.

“There’re Lamparos down here?” Peter squeaked, and kicked out desperately. His face smacked off the floor of the tunnel and his boots hit the roof, then bounced hard to the floor again. Fat hot tears were building in his eyes. He hated them and himself and Yondu.

“Not anymore,” Yondu said. “Settle down. Listen.”

“Why?” he spat. “You’re just gonna leave if I can’t get out, so go already.”

“Job’s already done,” Yondu said. Peter fell silent. It felt less deathly this time, more like the dark was suddenly listening too. “If I was gonna leave ya I’d be gone. What I tell you, boy?”

“Listen,” Peter whispered. Breathe slow.

On the other side of the comms, Yondu started to whistle. The tune was fast and deliberate, an oscillating slide of the same few notes which sounded almost jolly.  It went on for a long time.

He’s sending the arrow, Peter thought. He tried to believe it was to skewer him for failing, because if Yondu weren’t a real son-of-a-bitch Peter wouldn’t be down here in the first place, but hope expanded in his chest and the walls seemed to recede away from it like shadows from light. And then there was light: the familiar cherry glow of the arrow as it cruised gently into sight at the end of the tunnel. It came on slowly, Yondu’s whistle easing into one low tone, until it stopped midair about a foot in front of Peter’s head. He reached out and caught it. It was warm, but not hot.

“I...I’ve got it,” he said.

“Good,” Yondu said, and started to whistle again, high this time, but still just one note. The arrow pulled away, Peter’s fist clenched around it, and for the first time in forever he felt a forward shift. He pushed his toes into the rock behind him – the shards of tunnel in his shoulders dug in for a moment and then slipped away – and then he was being drawn slowly but steadily past the sticking point. It didn’t even seem that hard. He pushed with his feet and dragged himself by his one free arm, and the arrow kept moving until his chest was clear of the narrowest point, then his hips, and finally he was able to crawl again on his hands and knees as the space widened.

“I’m through,” he gasped. He rubbed quickly at the tear trails on his face. They’d started to dry.

“’Bout time,” Yondu said. The arrow did a little loop-the-loop ahead of him. “Keep on comin’ now, boy. Crew’s already back at the ship.”

Peter sniffed, coughed, and kept moving. The rest of the way was up an incline, and his muscles shook as he pushed himself along. Stinging cuts littered his hands and arms and his back was still bleeding. He felt a weird, trembling, floating sensation buzzing all the way through him, and that was what made him whisper at the arrow cruising along at his side.

“I still hate you,” he said. His voice sounded confiding in the still cramped space. Yondu said nothing.

It felt like forever before he started to see natural light again, and realised he was coming to the end of the tunnel. And then he was there, and someone was pulling him out of his hole by the armpits. He let himself be lifted, expecting to be dropped again onto shaky, cramping legs. Instead, Yondu hooked an arm under his knees and held him. It was the way grandpa used to hold him when he was small and being carried up the stairs to bed; a big, all encompassing hug supposed to stop him running off and getting into post-bedtime trouble. Except Yondu was just standing there, cradling Peter against his chest in silence, and he was the one who specifically ordered Peter into trouble these days. It didn’t make sense.

After a long moment of Yondu still just standing there not saying anything, Peter stopped waiting for an explanation, and let himself slump into his captain’s shoulder.

Breathe slow, he remembered.

Yondu’s jacket smelled of leather and metal. It was warm and porous under his cheek, and he could feel it rise and fall with Yondu’s own slow breaths.

He knew that as soon as this stopped happening, he’d start to stop believing that it had ever happened at all. He couldn’t – shouldn’t – trust it to be real. He was hazy and tired and Yondu’s arms were wrapped warmly around him, pressing away the terror which had crept inside his body, and it was a moment, and that was all it would be. He shut his eyes and remembered how it had felt to be embraced by a mother who loved him.

Just as her face was coming back into his memory, clear and bright and smiling, the moment passed. Yondu lowered him back to the floor, whistled his arrow into its holster, and straightened his coat. Peter pulled his jacket back on. It had been too bulky to wear down the tunnel, even though it might have spared him some of his fresh scrapes. It felt heavy on his smarting back. He brushed dirt off the knees of his pants. There were holes in them. He’d have to go see the tailor.

“Let’s go,” Yondu said. Peter nodded to himself. Right. It hadn’t meant anything. Of course.

After they both had started walking, Yondu added, “Good score today. You’ll get a fair cut.”

“Fine,” Peter said. “Are we talking, like, eighty percent? Because I think I did all the work.”

The Captain barked a laugh. “Always pushing, Quill. Maybe next time I’ll send you out into the shooting; see how much work you get done there.”

“More than Gef does, I bet,” Peter said. 

No, it hadn’t meant anything at all.

He felt cold now, out in the open air, jacket or not. 

“Gef ain’t your concern,” Yondu said. “Your concern is picking your feet up and clearing out before we get caught.”

Peter took a few exaggeratedly high steps, but he didn’t have the energy to keep doing it until Yondu stopped pretending not to notice, so he subsided and just did his best not to be left behind. 

The celebration of a profitable job had already stated by the time they reached the ship.Half the crew were more than half drunk. Yondu looked about five seconds from whistling when he saw them slopping about in the bridge, so Peter picked his feet up properly and high-tailed it back to his bunk.

They let him sleep in the next morning, and he did get his cut of the job. He still didn’t think it was very fair. 

For weeks afterwards, his dreams were a bewildering mix of endless tunnels, his mother’s half-remembered smile, and the firm pressure of Yondu’s arms holding him off the ground.


End file.
